Umesh Chandra Banerjee

Umesh Chandra Banerjee (18 November 1937 – 5 November 2012) was a Bengali Indian jurist, who served as the chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 1998. He had also served as a permanent judge of the Calcutta High Court and as a judge of the Supreme Court of India.^[1] His name is not to be confused with Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, the Indian barrister who served as the first president of Indian National Congress.

Early life

Born to Nalin Chandra Banerjee, an eminent criminal and constitutional lawyer, he graduated from the Scottish Church College of the University of Calcutta in 1961, before proceeding to study law at the Inner Temple in London, from which he graduated in December, 1964.^[2][3]

Career

He started out as a barrister at the Calcutta High Court in 1965. He was appointed a permanent judge at the Calcutta High Court in 1984. In February 1998, he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. He was also appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in December 1998. He retired in 2002. He was one of the founder members and later president of SAARC Law.^[3][4]

In 2005, he served as chairman of the committee constituted by the Government of India on the fire in Sabarmati Express at Godhra in the state of Gujarat, that led to 59 deaths. He concluded that the fire was accidental and not started by the Muslim mob. Dismissing the later ruling of an Ahmedabad court that there was a conspiracy involved to set the train on fire, Justice Banerjee stood by his findings and the evidence of an accidental fire.^[4]

He served as an advisor and adjunct professor at the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He also served as a governing council member at the Scottish Church College in Calcutta, the National Law School of India University at Bangalore, and at the Nalsar University of Law in Hyderabad. He was also the founder president of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research.^[3][5]

Later on 2006 Gujarat high court termed the appointment of the high-level Justice UC Banerjee panel that probed the Godhra train carnage as "unconstitutional, illegal and void".The formation of the commission was challenged by a victim Neelkanth Bhatia, who contended that there was already a commission probing the fire.Upholding the argument of the petitioner, the order passed by Justice DN Patel, stated: "The Railways has no authority to appoint such a committee as it was in gross violation of provisions of sections of the Indian Railways Act."^[6][7]

References